Roy sprang to his feet, but Ken caught him by the arm.

'Steady! Don't hurry, or you'll give the show away. It's not likely they're all gone.'

'Every man Jack of 'em,' Roy answered, as he walked boldly out on to the beach.

Ken glanced round sharply. It seemed as though Roy were right. So far as he could see, the whole population of the beach had departed for the scene of the explosion.

'There are the boats,' said Roy. 'Three, four—yes, half a dozen of them. Now we shan't be long.' 'They're great clumsy brutes of things,' Ken answered. Hang it all! There isn't one we can manage between us.'

'Wait. There's a smaller one beyond. That might do us.' muttered Roy, hurrying forward.

Ken followed quickly. As Roy had said, this boat which lay by itself was decidedly smaller than the others. It had, however, been pulled clear of the water.

'Good, she's got a pair of oars,' said Roy. 'Give us a hand to launch her, Ken.'

She was a considerable weight, and the shingle was deep and soft. There is no tide in these waters, so the beaches are dry like those of a lake. In spite of their best efforts, it took them some little time to get her afloat.

They had only just succeeded and Ken was scrambling aboard, when rapid steps came hurrying down the beach.

'Halt!' came a sharp voice speaking in Turkish. 'Who goes there?'



CHAPTER XIII

THE SWEEPERS

'Hurry!' hissed Roy.

'No use,' was the low-voiced answer. 'He'd get us both before we were out of range.' As he spoke, Ken turned and stepped swiftly back to the beach.

'Friend,' he answered, speaking in the same language. 'Despatches for Chanak from Colonel Gratz.'

The sentry, a burly Turk, armed with a Mauser rifle, pulled up opposite Ken.

'Despatches,' he repeated suspiciously. 'Why are they being sent by boat? And who gave you leave to use this boat?'

In a flash Roy saw that this was a man of more intelligence than the average run of Turkish soldiers, and that it would be useless to try and bluff him. The only chance was to put him out.

'We had our orders,' he said. 'You can look at them if you wish.' He pretended to take something out of his pocket, at the same time stepping forward. Then, like a flash, he drove his fist with all his might into the Turk's face.

The man reeled backwards, but did not fall. Next moment he uttered a shout that rang through the night.

'We've done it now,' growled Roy, as he leaped past Ken, and caught the wretched sentry by the throat with a grip that effectually prevented any further sound.

'Take his rifle, Ken,' he said sharply. 'It's all right. I'll gag him. You get into the boat.'

How he did it Ken did not know, but within an incredibly short time Roy had sprung into the water, pushed the boat off, and scrambled aboard.

'I'll take the oars,' he said unceremoniously, and Ken, though himself a useful man with sculls, made no objection. Roy's strength, he knew, was greater than his own.

In a trice Roy had flung off his Turkish overcoat and British tunic. The blades bent as he sent the boat hissing through the water.

There was no tiller, but Ken found a broken scull at the bottom of the boat with which he contrived to steer. He kept her head due south, but fairly close in shore, and what between Roy's powerful efforts, and the strong current which always flows out of the Sea of Marmora into the Aegean, they were soon going almost as fast as a man could run.

'It'll be Heaven's own luck if no one heard that yell,' muttered Roy, as he bent all his giant strength to the oars.

'I wish it had been your fist and not mine,' Ken replied with some bitterness.

'But I couldn't have got near him,' Roy answered simply. 'You see, I don't speak the lingo.'

The vicious crack of a rifle interrupted the conversation, and a bullet slapped the water just astern, and went skipping away in a series of ducks and drakes.

'They're on to us,' muttered Ken between set teeth. Roy said nothing. He only pulled a little harder. By the way the oars bent, Ken almost feared they would snap.

Another spit of white flame from the beach, another, and another. Still they were unhit, and every moment the distance was increasing. They had got beyond the low beach, and were under the cliffs to the southward.

'We may do it yet,' muttered Ken. 'They can't see us in this light. And there are not more than two chaps firing.'

There was a moment's pause in the firing. Ken's spirits rose. He thought—hoped that the Turks had given it up as a bad job. Then, just as it seemed as though they were really out of range, there rang out a regular volley, and all around them the water splashed in little jets of pale foam. There came a thud, the boat quivered slightly, and white splinters flew near Ken's feet, one cutting him slightly on the shin.

'Hit?' panted Roy, as he saw Ken wince.

'Nothing. It's the boat,' answered Ken briefly, as he bent to examine the damage.

A few seconds later, and they had rounded the projecting point of rock on which stands the old lighthouse. The firing ceased.

Roy slackened a little.

'Much damage?' he asked curtly.

'Holed her badly,' Ken answered. 'She's leaking like a sieve.'

'Rotten luck!' growled Roy. 'And just as we'd dodged the blighters. Can you do anything with it?'

'Ram a handkerchief in—that's all. Of course, I can bale.'

'Well, keep her afloat as long as you can. It won't be exactly healthy if we have to land anywhere here. All forts, isn't it?'

'Yes, down as far as Tekeh. Not that the forts will do us any harm, even if they're warned. We're too small and too close in for gun fire. But there's no place to land for nearly two miles—not until you get to what they call the Fountain.'

Apparently the forts were not warned. As the 'Triumph' had been slamming 12-inch shells into them only the previous night, the chances were that the telephone wires were cut. Roy kept going with long steady strokes, while Ken, working even harder, baled frantically the whole time.

So they drove on without speaking for about a quarter of an hour.

At last Ken straightened his aching back. 'It's no use, Roy. The water's gaining. I can't keep it down.'

'You needn't tell me that. I've been over my ankles the last five minutes, and she's pulling like a sunk log.'

'What are we going to do?' said Ken—'Try for the Fountain landing?'



'Might as well, I suppose. Any chance of picking up another boat, d'ye think?'

'Pretty slim, I fancy,' answered Ken. 'There are sure to be sentries there. You see, it's the sort of place where our people might attempt a landing.'



'Could we try for the other side?' suggested Roy.

'Out of the question,' said Ken. 'We're opposite Sari Siglar Bay. The Straits are nearly three miles wide here.'

Roy gave a short laugh. 'Looks as if we should have to swim for it after all,' he said. 'Well, the only thing is to keep going until she sinks under us. Then we must scramble ashore and take our chances.'

He pulled on again, and Ken betook himself to his everlasting task of baling. He was mortally tired and desperately sleepy. His eyes almost closed as he dipped and dipped in the salt water which, in spite of all his efforts, grew steadily deeper in the bottom of the boat. The lower she sank, the more quickly the water spurted in. Each minute that passed brought the inevitable end closer.

Once he glanced up to see, if possible, where they were. To the right tall black cliffs towered against the night sky, to the left the stars twinkled in the ripples of the deep and wide Straits.

Roy pulled like a machine, but the weight of water made his efforts almost useless. The boat sogged slowly forward like a dead thing.

'She won't last another five minutes,' said Ken.

'And there's no landing place, old chap. We're right up against it.'

'Tell you what there is, though,' said Ken keenly. 'There's a craft of some sort out there. Don't you hear her engines?'

Roy stopped pulling a moment. In the silence a faint chug, chug reached their ears.

'What do you think she is—one of our warships?' he asked in a whisper.

'Haven't a notion. But she's probably British or French. The Turks haven't got much in the way of craft—at least not this side of Gallipoli.'

'Then I vote for trying to make her,' said Roy. 'Right you are,' Ken answered, and began baling harder than ever Roy, pulling on his left-hand oar, got the boat round, and made a last spurt in the direction of the sound.

It seemed a very forlorn hope. They could not even see the craft—whatever she was—and their boat manifestly had but a short time to live. If she sank out in mid-straits there was no earthly chance of reaching the shore. Drowning was certain.

Three minutes passed. The water in the boat was nearly knee deep. Pull as he might, Roy could hardly keep her moving. Ken raised his head and peered out through the gloom.

'I see her,' he said with sudden eagerness. He pointed as he spoke to a dim shape not more than a couple of hundred yards away.

Roy glanced back over his shoulder. 'She's very small,' he said, 'and she's working upstream. Hallo, there's another just beyond her—a pair of 'em.'

'Two, are there? Then I tell you what they are—trawlers.'

'Trawlers!' echoed Roy. 'What—catching herrings for the Admiral's breakfast?'

'No, you ass—mines. They're mine-sweepers of course.' Roy gave a low whistle.

'I'd sooner catch herrings,' he said. 'But never mind. So long as they're British, that's all that matters.' And he set to pulling again with all the energy left him.

The trawlers were creeping along at very slow speed, and without a light of any sort showing. There was not even the usual glow from the funnel top. Lucky it was for Roy and Ken that they were going so slowly, for they were still some little distance from the nearest trawler when the ripples began to wash over the gunwale of the water-logged boat.

'Help!' shouted Roy hoarsely. 'Help!'

'Pull on!' said Ken, as he still baled frantically. 'Pull on! They can't come round if they've got their sweeping cable out.'

Roy made a last effort, and whether it was Roy's shout or the sound of the oars, some one aboard the trawler heard them.

'Who are you?' came a gruff voice, half-muffled, as though afraid of being overheard on shore.

'Friends—British,' answered Ken. 'Our boat's sinking.'

There came a sharp order echoed from the farther ship. The trawlers both slackened speed.

'Come alongside, if you can. We can't pull out to you,' called the same voice that Ken had heard previously.

A few more strokes, then just as the boat was actually sinking under them, a rope came whizzing across. Roy caught it and a moment later, wet and draggled, they were standing on the deck of the trawler.

'Well, I'll be everlastingly jiggered,' exclaimed a gruff voice. 'Where in all that's wonderful did you fellers spring from?' The speaker was a short, square man, but it was so dark that all they could see of his face was that it was round and clean-shaven.

'Out of the Dardanelles last, and before that from Kilid Bahr,' Ken answered. 'We're escaped prisoners.'

'Gosh, you've been in warm places, young fellers,' said the other, 'but I kind o' think it's a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.'

'Fire's better than water, specially when it's as cold as the Straits,' said Roy with a shiver.

'Well, maybe that's so,' replied the other. 'Get you gone below, the both o' you. You'll find a fire in the galley and the cook'll give ye some hot cocoa.'

'Thanks awfully,' said Ken and Roy in one breath, and hurried off at once.

The cook, a lean, solemn-faced man named Lemuel Gill, showed no surprise whatever at the sudden apparition of two half-drowned strangers. But if he asked no questions he was not stingy with the cocoa, and Roy and Ken put away a quart of it between them, and openly declared they had never tasted anything so good in all their lives.

Their praise seemed to please Gill, for he proceeded to cut some gigantic sandwiches out of stale bread and excellent cold boiled pork, and to these also the hungry youngsters did justice.

'What ship is this?' asked Ken, when the first pangs of hunger had been satisfied.

'"Maid o' Sker." Mine—sweeper. Skipper, Seth Grimball,' was the brief answer. Then, after a pause, 'Where did you blokes come from?'

Ken told him, or rather began to, for before he had finished, the steady beat of the engines suddenly slackened.

'Cotched one, I reckon,' remarked Gill briefly, and hurried on deck followed by the two boys.

The 'Maid of Sker' was the ordinary type of North Sea trawler, and so far as Ken and Roy could see, her fellow, whose name Gill told them was the 'Swan of Avon,' was her double. They were moving exactly parallel, at a distance of about a cable (220 yards) apart. Between them towed a thin steel hawser set to a depth just sufficient to catch the mooring cables of the mines which were plentifully strewn in the channel.

'Caught one, you say?' whispered Ken in Gill's ear. 'A mine, you mean?'

'Ay. Look at the cable. She's foul of it all right.'

Certainly the cable was sagging in a curious fashion.

'What do you do with them?' asked Roy.

But Gill had already run aft to assist. Low-voiced orders were heard, and the 'Maid of Sker' began to forge slowly ahead.

'I think they're going to tow it out of the channel,' Ken said to Roy. 'That's what I believe they do.'

'But I thought the beastly things exploded when you touched 'em,' said Roy.

'Some do. That's the sort with steel whiskers on them. The others are what they call tilting mines. They blow up when their balance is upset.'

'And which is this?'

'I don't know any more than you, and I don't suppose the skipper does, either. All these mines swim some way under the surface.'

'What's the betting on her going off?' said the irrepressible Roy.

'She won't,' said Ken confidently. 'These chaps know how to handle her. She—'

He stopped short, and involuntarily flung up his hands before his eyes. A cone of blinding white light had sprouted suddenly from the Asiatic shore, and in its cold brilliance the outlines of the two trawlers, the people on their decks, the cable towing between them, and a wide patch of rippling water stood out as clearly as in the broadest daylight. It was a searchlight from Kephez Point at the southern angle of Sari Siglar Bay.

'Haul up there. Haul on that cable. Sharp now!' bellowed Captain Grimball, and his men sprang to obey. He himself dashed into the little deckhouse and was out again in an instant with a rifle in his hand.

In the dazzling glare a great bulbous mass of dark-coloured metal heaved slowly up out of the water midway between the two trawlers. It was hardly in sight before Grimball had flung his rifle to his shoulder and fired.

Followed instantly an explosion so terrific that Ken distinctly felt the deck of the trawler lift under his feet. A cloud of thick black smoke shot high into the air, and as it rose a very waterspout descended upon the little ship.

Roy and Ken staggered back, half deafened by the appalling concussion.

'Got that one, anyway,' they heard Grimball exclaim, as he dashed back to the bridge and rang the engine bell for full steam. 'Got him all right. Next question is whether the blighters will get us.'

Both trawlers seemed actuated by the same impulse. Both at the same time surged ahead, while the sweeping cable was either cut or cast loose.

But the searchlight's brilliant beam followed relentlessly, and as the two smart little craft cleared from the area of the black smoke cloud, there came the ringing report of a 6-inch gun followed by the familiar whirr of a heavy shell.

'Rotten shot!' snapped Grimball, as the shell, sailing well over the mast top, plunged into the sea two hundred yards or more beyond.

'Hard aport!' he shouted, and the 'Maid' came spinning round almost as smartly as a sailing dinghy. Next minute she and her consort were legging it southwards at the very top of their speed.

For a moment they were clear of the dazzling radiance of the searchlight, but only for a moment. Then the long pencil of glaring whiteness found them again, and now the guns began to bark in earnest.

The 'Maid' seemed to know her peril. She squattered down into the water, and the foaming wake lengthened, trailing far behind her. Forgetful of their own danger, Roy and Ken watched breathless while the trawlers ran the gauntlet of the forts.

A shell struck the water right under the bows of the 'Maid,' flinging up a fountain which rose as high as the mainmast, and deluging the decks for a second time.

'Mighty wet job this,' said Roy, shaking himself like a great dog. 'Rotten luck we can't shoot back, eh, Ken?'

'Can't even do much running,' said Ken. 'Twelve knots is about our top speed. 'Pon my soul, these chaps have got pluck.'

'The "Swan's" drawing ahead,' said Roy.

Almost as the words left his lips there came a shattering crash and a sheet of flame leapt up from the other trawler. A shell had pitched full upon her armoured wheel-house, and exploding had not only blown it away, with the steersman, but opened up the whole deck. The poor little trawler, with her steering gear smashed, swung round to starboard, and it was only by the smartest seamanship that the 'Maid' avoided running her down.

'She's done,' said Roy, as he ran forward. 'She's sinking!'

He was right. The big shell had knocked her all to pieces. Grimball saw this too, and in response to his rapid order, the 'Maid's' engines stopped, and four stalwart fellows ran to the dinghy which lay in chocks on her deck.

In a trice they had flung her over the low rail into the sea; two sprang in and pulled hard for the rapidly sinking 'Swan.'

All the time the guns ashore were rapping and roaring. The sea was thick with spouts of foam as shells big and little struck the surface.

'This infernal searchlight!' growled Roy. 'They're rotten shots, but they're getting the range now.'

They were. Just as the dinghy drew alongside the 'Swan,' another 6-inch plunged straight into her, amidships. It must have exploded in the engine-room. The 'Swan' and all in her vanished from the face of the waters, and when the smoke cloud lifted, the dinghy, upside down, with one man clinging to it, was all that was left.

'A rope. Give us a rope!' shouted Roy. Some one ran forward, but even as they did so a smaller shell caught the funnel of the 'Maid' and carried two thirds of it away. With it went the man with the rope.

At the same moment the survivor who was clinging to the dinghy let go his hold. Stunned by the concussion of the previous shell, he was sinking into the depths.

'I can't stand that,' cried Roy, and with one spring was overboard and striking out hard for the drowning man.

The racket and roar were appalling. Some field batteries behind Kephez had joined in, and the whole night echoed with the quick crashes of the guns, while the air was full of the train-like rattle of flying shells.

But in all the confusion Ken kept his head. Catching sight of a coil of line on the deck close by the forward hatch, he sprang for it, made one end fast to a bollard, and with a shout flung the other towards Roy.

It fell short, but Roy saw it and with a great effort reached it.

'Hang on!' roared Ken at the top of his voice. 'I'll pull you in.'



He had hardly began to haul when the end came. A shell bigger than any yet took the 'Maid of Sker' amidships. There was a fearful explosion, Ken felt himself hurled forward, and next moment the chill waters of the Dardanelles closed over his head.



CHAPTER XIV

G 2

Gasping with the sudden shock, Ken struck out and got his head above water. Only a few yards away, he saw Roy still clinging tightly to the survivor of the dinghy's crew. He swam hard towards him and managed to reach him.

'You!' gasped Roy, who hardly seemed to have realised what had happened.

'The trawler's gone,' panted Roy, as he lifted one hand and dashed the salt water from his eyes. 'Big shell got her. See, she's still afloat, but sinking fast.'

Roy gave a groan. He seemed to be nearly at the end of his strength.

'The brutes!' he muttered.

'We must get hold of the dinghy again. It's our one chance,' said Ken. 'Here, let me help you with that chap.'

'Why, it's Gill,' he exclaimed, as he caught the man by the other arm, and started paddling hard towards the dinghy, which, caught in the current, was drifting steadily away southwards.

It was at this moment that the searchlight switched suddenly off. Darkness shut down around them, leaving nothing in sight but the overturned boat, a dim bulk among the dull ripples.

Roy was almost done as the result of the exertions he had made in holding up Gill, and Gill himself weighted them terribly. For two minutes or more Ken thought they would never reach the boat.

At last they managed it, and then they had only just strength enough left to haul Gill up across it and, each with an arm across the keel, cling and let themselves drift where the current took them.

'The skipper said it was out of the frying pan into the fire,' said Roy, with a weak attempt at a laugh. 'He wasn't far out, eh, Ken?'

'He wasn't,' Ken agreed. 'I say, Roy, he had pluck, hadn't he? It took grit to stand by the "Swan" under a fire like that.'

'It did,' said Roy. 'God rest his soul,' he added softly.

Silence fell between them. Ken's spirits were sinking in spite of his best efforts to keep them up. The sea was deadly cold, and the boat so small that they were only just able to keep their heads above water. And they knew, both of them, that their chances of life were not one in a thousand.

They were right out in mid-straits, they were still fully nine miles from the southern entrance, and even if a British warship should come up to see what had happened to the trawlers, the odds were enormous against her people spotting them.

Ken strained his eyes through the gloom, but could neither see nor hear any other craft. The waters were bare and silent.

'Roy,' he said at last, and it was all he could do to keep his teeth from chattering. 'Roy, can't we manage to right the dinghy?'

'You and I might. But what about Gill?'

The question was unanswerable. It would take all their united strength to turn the dinghy over. And who was to hold Gill meantime?

No, the case was absolutely desperate. There was nothing for it but to hang on and continue hanging on until at last the deadly cold had done its work, and they dropped off and sank into the darksome depths beneath them. It was a miserable end, and Ken's whole soul rebelled against it.

The guns had ceased firing, there were no lights anywhere to be seen, the only sound was the monotonous slap of the ripples against the hull of the overturned boat and—far in the distance—the dull mutter of the guns down by Sedd-el-Bahr.



Ken felt a dull stupor creeping over him, a curious sense of unreality. His thoughts began to wander. So much so that at first he hardly noticed the curious sucking splash which came from the water some little distance to the left.

It was Roy who called his attention to it.

'Ken, there's a thundering great fish out there. Do they keep sharks in these waters?'

Before Ken could reply, the splash was followed by a slight grating sound, then a dull clank, like two metal plates being lightly struck together.

Hope dawned suddenly in Ken's heart, sending a tingling shock through the whole of his perishing body.

'That's no fish,' he muttered. 'That's no fish.' Then raising himself as high as he could out of the water he sent a sharp cry for help pealing through the darkness.

'Hallo! Hallo! Who's that?'

Never had Ken been happier to hear the sound of a human voice.

'Three survivors from the "Maid of Sker,"' he answered. 'Our boat's upset.'

'Hang on!' came the quick reply. 'We'll have you out in a jiffy.'

There came low voiced orders, the low purr of an engine, and a low dark bulk topped by a curious square-looking turret came gliding towards them.

'What is it?' muttered Roy in a dazed tone.

'A submarine,' Ken answered gladly. 'That's her conning tower. Here she comes. Hang on to Gill, or the wash will take him off.'

A moment later, and the long gray craft swam up right alongside of the dinghy. It was the most beautiful bit of steering imaginable. A hand reached out and pulled the dinghy close against the hull, and strong arms gripped and lifted the three aboard.

Ken felt himself swung gently up the conning tower, then he was lowered with equal ease and skill through the open hatch. Within an incredibly short time he was flat on a mattress laid on the throbbing steel floor of the submarine.

A keen-faced officer stood beside him.

'Both the sweepers gone?' he asked gravely.

'I'm afraid so, sir. The "Swan" was knocked all to bits, and we saw the "Maid" sink. I believe we are the only survivors.'

'We heard the firing, but couldn't get here sooner. But you're in khaki. How's that?'

'Horan and I are escaped prisoners, sir. We stole a boat up by Kilid Bahr, and were picked up by the "Maid." Gill is the only man left from the trawler. He was one of the crew of the "Maid's" dinghy that went to help the "Swan's" people.'

'And you?'

'Horan and I were trying to save him when the "Maid" was hit.'

The other nodded approvingly.

'Ah, you're Australians. Good men! But I see you're about all in. I shan't bother you with any more questions now. Williams, see these men have a change, and a tot of rum. And some of you give 'em a good rub down. They're stiff with cold.'

He nodded again and went off.

Williams, a burly torpedo coxswain, at once took charge of Ken. His big hands were as tender as a woman's as he stripped off the boy's soaking clothes and substituted for them a fresh suit of warm lammies. Before putting them on, he gave Ken such a rubbing with a rough towel as sent the stagnant blood tingling through every vein.

'Thanks awfully,' said Ken gratefully. 'I say, how's Gill? He got knocked silly with the blast of the shell that sunk the "Swan." Is he hurt?'

'He ain't hit, anyway,' said Williams. 'He's swallowed a bit more salt water than suits his innards, but he'll pull round all right, never you fear.

'Here, drink this down,' he continued, handing Ken a thick mug full of some steaming mixture. Ken swallowed it obediently. It was thick Navy cocoa, laced with a dash of rum.

It sent a grateful warmth through every inch of Ken's body, but its immediate effect was to make him so drowsy that his eyes began to close.

'That's all right,' he heard Williams remark in a satisfied voice. 'Forty winks won't do you no manner of harm.' The last thing Ken remembered was being wrapped in a blanket. Then he dropped back on the mattress and almost before his head reached it was sound asleep.

He woke to the purr of engines and a warm thick atmosphere smelling strongly of oil and illuminated by white electric lamps. For the moment he could not imagine where he was nor what had happened. It was not until he rolled over and saw Roy lying stretched on another mattress beside him, and Gill a little beyond, that any sort of recollection came back to him.

He stretched himself. He was sore all over, but otherwise fit enough and very hungry. Then he sat up.

A burly figure came towards him, walking with that curiously light-footed tread which becomes second habit in a submarine. It was Williams, the coxswain.

'Well, young fellow me lad,' he remarked genially, 'how goes it?'

'Top hole, thanks. A bit empty. That's all.'

'If that's your only trouble, we'll soon fix it. Can you walk?'

'You bet.'

'Then come along forrard, and we'll see what cooky can do for you.'

Cooky's efforts consisted in biscuit, butter, sardines, jam, and lashings of hot strong tea, to all of which Ken did the fullest justice.

'And how d'ye like life under the ocean wave?' asked Williams, who was watching Ken's progress with the eye of a connoisseur.

'First time I ever tried it,' said Ken, glancing round the long, narrow interior which seemed merely a packing case for a maze of intricate machinery. 'What is she? What class I mean?'

'She's G 2, sonny, and don't you forget it. The last word in submarine gadgets. Twenty knots on the surface, and twelve submerged. Carries eight o' the biggest and best torpedoes, any one o' which is warranted to knock the stuffing out o' the "Goeben" or any other o' Weeping Willy's super-skulkers.'

'Where are we now?' inquired Ken with interest.

'Couldn't say precisely. But somewheres about ten fathom below the shinin' surface of the Dardanelles.'

Ken felt a queer thrill. There was something uncanny in the thought that they were spinning along, sixty feet below the sea-level, cut off from all the living world.

'Pass the word the commander wishes to see Carrington,' came a voice.

'Lootenant Strang wants you,' said Williams. 'Go right aft. Sentry'll show you. And go careful, mind you. Submarines ain't the sort o' shops for foot races.'

Ken went cautiously back past the amazing tangle of spinning, whirling machinery. Where the long interior narrowed to the stern hung a thick curtain. The sentry silently parted it, and Ken found himself in the officer's quarters of G2. They were as plain as the steerage on a liner. Just two bunks and in the middle a table at which Lieutenant Strang sat, busily writing.

He glanced up as Ken entered, and, saluting, stood to attention. Ken noticed, with inward approval, the strength and intelligence in the clean-cut features of the commanding officer.

'Feeling better, Carrington?'

'Quite all right, sir, thank you.'

'Had breakfast?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I want to hear what you've been doing. Let's have the whole yarn.'

Ken told him. He put it as shortly as he could, but gave his story clearly and well. Lieutenant Strang listened with the deepest attention.

''Pon my word, you and your chum have been going it some!' he remarked when Ken at last finished. 'So you're a son of Captain Carrington? How is it you did not take a commission?'

'I didn't think I had any right to it, sir,' Ken answered simply. 'It seemed to me it was the sort of thing one ought to win.'

'Just so. I dare say you are right. I hope you'll get one anyhow. But see here, I can't put you ashore. We're going north, not south.'

'Going up through the Straits, sir?' exclaimed Ken. 'We've gone. We're opposite Bulair this minute, so far as I can judge.'



CHAPTER XV

KEN MEETS AN OLD FRIEND

'Then—then you're bound for Constantinople?' said Ken eagerly.

Strang laughed.

'Not necessarily. No, I am not particularly anxious to charge into the Golden Horn. It's a deal of risk, and not much to be got out of it. Our mission is to cruise in the Marmora and look out for Turkish transports and store ships.'

'Why, what's the matter?' he broke off, noticing how Ken's face had fallen.

'I beg your pardon, sir. It was my father I was thinking of. You see he is in Constantinople—at least, so that scoundrel Henkel told me. I thought I might have a chance of getting ashore and helping him.'

'My good fellow, you must be crazy. Apart from the fact that I should have the greatest difficulty in putting you ashore, you would, of course, at once be arrested and shot as a spy.'

'I don't think so, sir. You see I know the place well, and have friends there. And I talk the language as well as I do English. I know some Arabic, too.'

'The deuce you do!' said the commander, staring at him keenly. 'Then it's possible that you may be uncommonly useful to me during our present trip. No, I shall tell you no more just now. And pray put out of your head any such mad idea as landing at Constantinople.'

'Very well, sir,' Ken answered quietly. And saluting again, he left the cabin.

Going forward again, he found Roy tucking into an enormous breakfast with every evidence of enjoyment. Williams was acting as host, and listening with interest to Roy's account of their wanderings across the peninsula.

Ken asked for Gill, and heard that he was doing very well, but only fit to lie up for the present.

Roy rose, brushed the crumbs from his lammies and stretched his tall frame.

'Heigh ho, I wish we could get back to our chaps,' he remarked regretfully.

'Well, of all the ungrateful beggars!' said Ken with a laugh. 'Talk of buying a ham and seeing life, you won't see as much in the trenches in a month as you'll see here in a day.'

'Any one can have this steel box for me,' retorted Roy. 'I like to fight where I can see what's coming.'

'Maybe you'll see more'n you want before you're finished with this trip, ye long grouser,' put in Williams. 'This ain't no pleasure picnic, let me tell you. Our old man's hot stuff, he is, and if I knows anything about it, it won't be long before he starts handing out surprise packets to them Turks.'

'Hallo,' he broke off, 'we're for the surface.'

As he spoke, G 2's bow began to rise and the whole long hull took a gentle slope.

'Pretty quick!' exclaimed Ken. 'I thought you had to do a lot of pumping first.'

'Bless you, no,' said Williams with a superior grin. 'Not with these 'ere modern craft. They works with horizontal rudders, sort o' fins along the side. Blime, G 2 can pop up and down mighty nigh as quick as a dab chick.'

'There now,' he continued, as the vessel came back to an even keel. 'She's floating just submerged. I reckon her periscopes is just out o' the water.'

'Could we have a look?' asked Ken eagerly.

'Ay, I dare say. You wait a minute and I'll see.'

He was back in a minute, and beckoned them to come.

There were two periscopes. It was the forward one they were called to. They saw a circular table from which a tube ran up through the top of the submarine. A man in shirt-sleeves—he was the other coxswain—got up from a stool and motioned Ken to take his seat and look through what seemed like a pair of binoculars.

Ken gave a cry of surprise. Instead of the hot, stuffy interior of the submarine with its pale electrics and maze of machinery, he was gazing at a wide circle of small-crested waves which shone gloriously blue under a brilliant sky. Now and then a white-winged gull swooped across the view, but apart from these, there was no sign of life or of land.

'Here, let's have a squint,' said Roy eagerly, and Ken gave way.

'Why, it's like a living picture show,' declared Roy. 'Gosh, I could sit and watch it all day. But I say, can't other craft spot the periscope in all this sunshine?'

'Not with this bobble on. At least not very easy,' said the observer, as he took his place again.

'Where are we?' asked Roy.

'Somewheres in the Sea o' Marmora,' Williams answered. 'Just in the mouth o' it, so to speak. I expect the old man'll keep pushing along up the north coast, awaiting for them transports out o' the Bosphorus.'

'And you talk about its being dull, Roy?' said Ken with a laugh.

'Well, perhaps I spoke a bit hastily,' allowed Roy. 'I'll grant I'd like to see us get our own back on some of those Turkish blighters. I haven't forgotten last night yet, I can tell you.'

'You wait till we get our eyes on one, that's all,' said Williams,' and you won't wait much longer.'

But the wait lasted longer than Ken and Roy expected. All that day G2 cruised slowly back and forth between the big island of Marmora, where the marble quarries are, and the high coast of the European mainland, yet nothing rewarded her vigilant watch.

There was nothing to do but sit about and yarn, and more than once Roy told Ken that he wouldn't be a submarine sailor for any amount of 'hard lying' money.

It was about four in the afternoon, and Ken had been taking a quiet nap, for he had a lot of arrears of sleep to make up, when he was roused by a sudden sharp order from Lieutenant Strang.

In an instant the drowsy interior of G2 wakened into sudden life, and Ken, springing to his feet, moved forward to where Williams was standing near the forward periscope.

'What's up?' he asked in a quick undertone.

'Craft in sight. Can't tell what she is yet.'

'A warship?'

'Transport, most like, but can't say yet. Sit tight. I'll tell ye when I can see her a bit plainer.'

By the deeper hum of the engines, Ken knew that they had quickened their speed. There was a sort of suppressed eagerness about all the twenty-five men who composed the crew of the submarine. Ken longed to have a peep through the camera of the periscope, but knew it was impossible.

'She isn't much,' said Williams at last. 'Just a tramp of twelve or fourteen hundred tons. Still, she may ha' got troops aboard, and if she ain't, it's grub or munitions for them beggars in the peninsula.'

'Are we going to torpedo her?' asked Ken.

'Not likely. We ain't like Germans, as chucks away a thousand pound torpedo on a pore little fishing smack.'

'But we shan't let her go, surely?'

Williams chuckled. 'Bless your innocence, no! A couple o' shells from our little popper up topside will settle her hash all right.'

Another order echoed from aft. Strang's voice had a curious hollow sound, like a shout in a tunnel. Ken felt the vessel rising beneath him.

Men sprang up the steel ladder leading to the conning tower. A moment later the hatch flew open with a hollow clang, and the sea air gushed in, freshening delightfully the thick oily atmosphere below.

At the same moment power was switched off the electric engines, and the petrol motor broke into life with an appalling racket. The long, cigar-like vessel trembled under the increased power.

'Can't we go up on deck?' muttered Roy who had joined Ken.

Ken shook his head. He knew that this was impossible, yet all the same it was intolerably irksome to remain below without being able to see or take a hand in what was going on.

More orders, and presently the submarine came to rest, and lay, with hardly a movement, on the surface.

Williams turned and beckoned to Ken, and next moment Ken had his eyes glued to the binoculars. In the circle of sea thrown on the mirror, the first thing he saw was an untidy looking tramp, her rusty plates showing as she rolled slowly to the slight sea.

Aboard her all was wild excitement. Turkish sailors were hurriedly launching boats. Ken almost fancied he could hear the davits squeal as the boats were hastily lowered to the level of the sea. Evidently the men were in a desperate fright, for seldom had Ken seen the slack, leisurely Turks move with such speed.

We ain't hurrying 'em,' said Williams in Ken's ear. 'We've give 'em twenty minutes.' Here, let your chum have a squint.'

Ken made way for Roy, and as he did so there was a shout from aft.

'Commander wants Carrington.'

'You lucky beggar,' cried Roy, but Ken was gone like a flash.

'Get along up on deck, soldier,' said a bluejacket. ''E's up there.'

Ken was up the ladder almost before the man had finished speaking, and swinging out through the hatch dropped down on to the narrow deck beneath.

There were four men on the deck, namely Lieutenant Strang, his second in command, Sub-Lieutenant Hotham, and two who stood by the gun, a 12-pounder which had been raised from its snug niche in the deck, and was pointed full on the steamer.

The latter was nearer than Ken had thought, and by this time it seemed that her whole crew were in the boats, and the ship herself entirely deserted.

'Ah, Carrington,' said the commander. 'You're the man who talks Turkish. I can't quite make out whether the skipper of this old tub thinks his boats can make the shore or whether he wants a tow. Ask him, will you?'

The Turkish skipper, a greasy-looking ruffian, was in a boat close by. He was gesticulating wildly.

Ken at once hailed him, and asked the necessary question. The man burst into violent speech.

Ken listened, and there was a smile on his face as he turned to the commander.

'He's only swearing at us, sir, and asking what right we have to sink his ship.'

'Tell him he'd better inquire of Enver Bey,' was the grim reply, and Ken faithfully repeated the remark, only to hear a volley of curses called down on Enver's head as well as on his own.

'He can't do anything but swear, sir,' said Ken.

'Well, we've no time to waste,' said the officer impatiently. 'Tell him to clear out as quick as he can. I'm not going to waste shells on that thing. A charge of gun-cotton in her hold is all she's worth.'

With much bad language, the Turkish skipper cleared off, and the three boats containing himself and his crew pulled away in the direction of the land, which was just visible on the almost before the words left the commander's lips, and pulling like fury for the steamer.

'Make for the bows,' he heard Strang shout, and he did so.

The distance was nothing—merely a couple of hundred yards. He glanced round over his shoulder, and saw the rusty bows towering above him—saw, too, to his intense relief, that the old man had realised that he was to be rescued and was moving forward.

Ken shipped his sculls. The dinghy glided in under the tall side of the tramp. Ken stood up, and looked round for a rope. He could not see one. There seemed no way of climbing the perpendicular side of the vessel, yet it was quite clear that the old man could not get down unaided.

Ken saw his face appear over the rail. A gasp of astonishment came from his lips.

'Othman!' he exclaimed. 'It's Othman Pacha!'

It was Othman Pacha, his old friend, the very man who had saved him when his father was arrested. How had he come here? How was it he had been left alone to perish by the crew of the steamer? What did it all mean? These and a dozen other thoughts darted through Ken's brain with the swiftness of a lightning flash. But above them all came the desperate resolve to save the old man at all costs.

Othman could do nothing to help himself. That was clear on the face of it. Old and apparently ill, he seemed quite confused and helpless.

Just above his head Ken saw an open port. Standing on the thwart he just managed to reach it. With a desperate effort he drew himself up, and succeeded in getting foothold on the lower rim. There was no way of securing the boat. He had to trust to luck that she would remain where he had left her.

Quickly yet cautiously he raised himself again, and his clutching fingers met the stays of the foremast. Another big pull, and he was level with the rail.

The old Turk stood staring at him, but did not seem to recognise him, and naturally Ken did not wait to explain. Every instant he expected to see the decks burst upwards, and the whole ship fly to pieces. He knew that it could be only a matter of seconds before the explosion took place.

A rope—that was what he wanted most just at that moment, and luckily he had not far to go for one. An untidy coil of line lay close beside the forward hatch.

He sprang for it, whipped it up, and in a trice had put a loop in it, and made a double bight around Othman's body.

'Over you go, Pacha!' he said with a sharpness which at last reached the muddled brains of the poor old Turk.

Somehow he bundled him over the rail, and lowered him quickly yet carefully into the boat which fortunately remained where he had left it alongside.

'Cast off the rope, Pacha,' he shouted in an agony of impatience, and Othman fumblingly tried to obey. Ken saw that he would never do it in time, so rapidly made fast his own end to the rail, and giving one pull to tighten the knot, sprang over.

Fifteen seconds more and he would have been safe. But hardly were his legs over the rail when the explosion came. There was a stunning shock, the whole ship seemed to melt beneath him. A blast of hot air struck him, and the next thing he knew was struggling in the water.

For a second or two he felt half paralysed, and as if he could not use his muscles. He realised that he was sinking, and this gave him such a shock that somehow he managed to pull himself together and strike out.

He came to the surface, dashed the water from his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the dinghy. By a miracle, she was floating unharmed among a mass of wreckage, but Othman was not in her.

Ken looked round, and saw the old Pacha dangling in the water alongside the swaying steamer. He was tied to her by the rope of which one end was around his body, while the other was still fast to the ship's rail.

It was a ghastly fix, for it was clear that the steamer was sinking fast. Another moment, and down she would go, dragging the unfortunate old man with her and Ken too. He knew well enough that, as she sank, she was bound to pull him also down into the vortex, and that from this great eddy he would never have the strength to rise. His one chance for life was to swim away as hard as he could go.



But Ken was not the sort to leave a job half-done. It was both or neither, and treading water he fumbled frantically in his pockets for his knife.

With a sigh of relief, his fingers closed upon it; he whipped it out, and opening it with his teeth struck out with all his strength for Othman.

It is no easy matter to cut a slack rope with a small clasp knife, especially when the blade is none too sharp. Ken felt as though he would never get it through.

He heard shouts from the submarine, but could not distinguish words. The steamer was settling fast. Already her rail was almost level with the water.

The last strand parted, and dropping the knife, Ken seized Othman, who by this time was quite insensible, and made for the dinghy with all his remaining strength.

He reached it, and got one arm over the stern. But that was all he could do. It was out of the question for him to lift Othman into the boat. He could not even climb in himself. He was completely done, and could only hang on, panting so that every breath he drew was pain.

From the steamer came the sound of a fresh explosion. The air, confined below, was forcing up her decks. Ken knew that now it was only a question of seconds before she sank, knew, too, that escape was out of the question. The dinghy was bound to be drawn down, and it was not as if the submarine had a second boat which she could send to the rescue.

'All right, Ken. Hold tight. I've got you!'

It was Roy's cheery voice, and Ken suddenly realised that he was there in the water alongside.

'Look out!' Ken managed to gasp. 'You'll only be dragged down too.'

'Not a bit of it,' Roy answered, as he raised himself and caught hold of the boat. 'Don't you worry, old man. I've a rope round me. I'll hold her.'

'Ah, there she goes!' he exclaimed, and as he spoke there was a queer sucking sound, and Ken felt the boat whirl away in the direction of the sinking steamer.

For some seconds it seemed as if he, Othman, and all would be ripped away from the boat by the tremendous suction. Great eddies boiled and swirled in every direction, and a thick scum of oil and coal dust rose and covered the surface of the sea.

'Hold on!' he heard Roy shout again, and somehow he did, though his right arm felt as though it were being torn from its socket.

At last the commotion ceased, the eddies disappeared, and the strain slackened.

'Thank goodness, that's the last of her,' said Roy, with a sigh of relief. 'Jove, but I couldn't have stuck it much longer. That rope round my waist has nearly cut me in two. How are you making it, old man?'

'I'm all right,' Ken answered, but his voice was so weak it scared Roy.

'Here, hand over his Nibs,' he said, as he moved round and took Othman from Ken. 'Now,' he said, 'just hang on a few minutes longer, and they'll pull us in.'

He raised one arm as a signal, the rope tightened gently, and the dinghy and the three holding to it were towed quickly back to the submarine.

Roy handed up Othman and scrambled out himself but they had to lift Ken out of the water. Once on deck, however, he insisted on scrambling to his feet.

'Not damaged?' inquired Lieutenant Strang with a touch of anxiety in his voice.

'Not a bit, sir,' Ken answered.

'I congratulate you, Carrington. It was an uncommon good and plucky bit of work, and I shall see that it is reported to your own commanding officer.'

Ken went below, tingling with a pleasure which made him forget his aching joints and muscles.



CHAPTER XVI

TACKLING THE TROOPER

'Yes, come in.'

Lieutenant Strang, busy plotting out something on a chart, looked up as the sentry parted the curtains of his cabin.

'Can Corporal Carrington see you, sir?' asked the man.

'Certainly. Send him in.'

Ken, looking more like himself in his khaki, which was now thoroughly dried, entered and saluted.

'Well, Carrington, what is it?' The commander's tone was quick, almost curt, yet there was a smile on his keen face as his eyes fell on Ken's upright figure.

'I've been talking to Othman Pacha, sir,' began Ken.

'Othman Pacha—who the deuce is he?'

'The Turk we rescued, sir. He's a friend of mine. I mentioned his name to you this morning. It was he who got me away into Greece when my father was arrested.'

'Of course. I remember now. But this is a most extraordinary coincidence—to find him on that tramp.'

'Not so much so as you might think, sir. You see he is known to be no friend to Enver Bey and the Young Turks. He was in danger of arrest, so he took the first opportunity of clearing out. He was going over to Adramyti on the Asiatic side, so as to get out of it all.'

'I see. Well, did he tell you anything useful?'

'He did, sir. You have heard that Enver Bey has informed our Chief Command that he intends to send French and British subjects to Gallipoli, so that they will be the first sufferers when we bombard the place.'

'Yes, I've heard that,' Strang answered, staring keenly at Ken.

'Well, sir, the Pacha says that the first lot is to leave Constantinople to-morrow. They are going with a batch of troops in a transport called the "Bergaz."'

'And,' he added—'my father will be with them.'

The commander of G2 pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.

'By Jove,' he said slowly, 'this is worth hearing. This is most interesting.'

He gave a low chuckle. 'Rather a smack in the eye for friend Enver if we can bring it off. Tell me, Carrington, did the Pacha say whether this trooper would have an escort?'

'I asked him that, sir, but he did not know. And he said this—That he would not have told us at all except for the fact that he thinks it brutal of Enver to send civilians into the firing line, and that he hopes, in case you find it necessary to sink the trooper, that you will allow the men to escape with their lives.'

Strang nodded thoughtfully.

'Hm, yes, I suppose I shall have to do that. After all, they won't be much use without rifles or kit, and the chances are that most of 'em will desert as soon as they reach the shore.

'But we mustn't count our chickens before they're hatched, eh, Carrington? We've got to find that transport before we can deal with her.'

He asked a few more questions, then dismissed Ken.

'You can tell the Pacha I shall respect his wishes,' he said, as Ken left his cabin.

All that night G2 cruised on the surface, going only at half speed so as to economise petrol, and at the same time re-charge her dynamos. As for Ken, tired out with his exertions, he lay upon the throbbing steel floor, wrapped in a blanket, and slept as peacefully as he had ever slept in his life.

It was broad day when he woke, feeling more refreshed than for days past, and quite ready for the plain though plentiful breakfast that was served out.

A glance which Williams allowed him through the periscope showed an expanse of bright blue sea sparkling under a clear sky and a light breeze, but with no sail in sight, and shortly afterwards G2 was submerged until nothing but her periscope remained above the surface.

By this time the rumour of the expected trooper was all through the little ship, and there was an air of subdued excitement on every face.

'Where are we now?' asked Ken of Williams.

'Somewhere between Marmora Island and Rodosto. Whatever comes out o' the Bosphorus for the Dardanelles is bound to run past us, and then—' A wink said more than words.

The hours dragged by, and Roy began to growl again at the tediousness of life beneath the ocean wave. Dinner time passed and still there was no sign of the trooper.

'Looks to me as if news had got abroad that we're a waiting for 'em,' growled Williams at last. 'Them chaps as got to land last night must ha' wired to headquarters.'

The other coxswain who was at the periscope at the moment, looked up.

'Then the wires must ha' been down, Joe. She's a coming right now.'

'Let's have a look,' exclaimed Williams, springing across.

'Ay, you're right, Bill. There she is. A big un, too!'

'And, lumme,' he added with a growl, 'a blighted torpedo boat a escorting of her!'

''Tis only one o' them tin Turkish rattle-traps,' said Bill with a pitying air. 'The old man'll slap a tin fish into her afore she knows what's hit her.'

As he spoke, the engines were already quickening, and G2 had begun to glide away at the top speed of her powerful electrics. The deep hum of the dynamos filled the long interior, and on every face was a look of eager expectancy.

As for Ken, his heart was throbbing like the dynamos themselves. The feeling that his father, whom he had hardly hoped ever to see again, was within a mile or so, had plunged him into such a state of tense excitement that it was all he could do to control it.

He turned to speak to Williams, but the latter had gone forward, and was standing by the torpedo in the fore tube.

The other coxswain, too, had gone to his place, and Sub-Lieutenant Hotham had taken his seat at the forward periscope.

For four minutes, which seemed to Ken like four hours, the submarine drove onwards in silence. Then came a sharp order from the commander, and she began to rise.

'What's she coming up for?' asked Roy of Ken in a low voice.

'She's got to, so as to fire her torpedo. You can't fire so long as you're submerged.'

'But if they see us, they'll let loose with their guns.'

'They've only got the periscopes to shoot at. Take more than Turkish gunners to hit them.'

'Stand by!' came the crisp order from Commander Strang. 'Three points to port—one more. Don't miss her, whatever you do, Williams. She's got the legs of us, and we shan't get a second shot.'

'That's right. Steady now. Shut down! Let go!'

Ken heard a sharp hiss as the compressed air drove the long gray Whitehead out of its tube, and sent it flashing away on its deadly errand. Young Hotham sat still as a statue, his eyes glued to the periscope. The rest of the crew seemed hardly to breathe. As for Ken, his mouth was dry. To him, more than to any one else aboard, the success or failure of the shot meant much.

Five, ten, fifteen seconds—then Hotham gave a sharp cry.

'Got her. Got her, by the living jingo! Oh, good shot, Williams!'

As he spoke a dull shock made the whole hull of G2 quiver.

'Hurrah!' shouted Ken, and the cheer was echoed by a score of voices.

'Struck her just aft the engines,' exclaimed Hotham jubilantly. 'Settled her hash all right. Gad, they've got pluck. They're still shooting. Ah, did you hear that, Carrington?'—as the submarine quivered again slightly. 'That was a shell. It struck the water not ten yards away.'

'But that's the last,' he continued. 'She's cocking her bows up. Phew, the whole bottom's knocked out of her. There she goes. She's sinking. Poor beggars, they haven't time to get out a boat, and we'll never reach 'em in time to save any of them.'

'Her stern's under. Bow's straight up in the air!' He paused a moment.

'All over,' he added quietly. 'She's gone.' Commander Strang's voice rang out from farther aft. Ken felt the vessel rising, and a few moments later a slight swaying told that she was on the surface. Up went the hatch, and the terrible clatter of the petrol engines replaced the deep purr of the dynamos.

'I'd give a finger to be on deck,' said Ken to Roy, and for once Roy did not jeer. He merely nodded, for he knew how desperately anxious Ken was about his father.

Ken had not long to wait. A few minutes later, an order was passed for Carrington to go up, and Ken darted up the steel ladder like a lamplighter.

Outside, he found the sun gone, the sky covered with clouds, and a threat of rain in the cool air. But it was not the weather he thought of. His eyes were at once fixed upon a large steamer about two miles off to the southward. Clouds of sooty smoke were pouring from her funnels, and a yeasty wake trailed away behind her. Taking warning by the fate of her escort, she was doing all she knew to escape.

'Will she beat us? Will she get away?' Ken asked anxiously of one of the gun crew.

'Will she spread her little wings an' turn into a waterplane?' replied the man with a grin. 'Bless you, soldier, she couldn't do more'n fourteen knots when she come out o' the builder's yard, and that's two more'n she's going now. You watch an' see how far she gets away.'

A very few moments' watching was enough to convince Ken that G2 was overhauling her prey hand over fist. Within less than a quarter of an hour a mile of the steamer's lead had gone. Another five minutes and the distance between the two was barely twelve hundred yards.

'Hallo, they're getting gay!' remarked the big bluejacket, as rifles began to spit and bullets to throw up little jets of spray around the rushing submarine.

Presently one clanged against the conning tower itself. Commander Strang gave an order, and a little row of bunting ran up on the tiny mast of the submarine.

'"Heave to, or I'll sink you," that means,' observed Ken's friend.

The only response was a thicker hail of bullets. But the low deck of G2, flying onwards as she was at about twenty-two land miles an hour, made a poor target, and the Turks failed to do any damage beyond knocking a little paint off.

'Confound 'em!' growled Strang. 'They haven't got sense enough to come in out of the rain. Give 'em a shell, Watson.'

The long gray 12-pounder was ready. Her vicious-looking muzzle swung round. There was a ringing bang, and the shell, small but charged with deadly lyddite, spun away on its errand.



Ken, watching eagerly, saw a bright flash light the side of the steamer, close under her stern, and as a cloud of smoke floated up, the crash of the explosion came back to his ears.

The big steamer staggered and yawed right out of her course.

'Capital!' said Strang with strong approval. 'That's hashed her steering. Signal 'em to heave to, or the next will be in their engine-room.'

There were a few more scattering rifle shots, but the officers on the transport soon stopped that. The transport herself, with her rudder in rags, was out of all control. Her engines were stopped, and she lay sullenly waiting for her saucy little enemy.

Strang gave a sigh of relief.

'Glad they had the sense to shut up,' he said to Ken. 'If they'd gone on shooting I should have had to sock it into them, and I didn't want to break my promise to your old Pacha.'

The submarine, smartly handled as usual, glided up close under the tall side of the transport, and Strang hailed her in French.

A black-browed officer, with angry eyes, came to the rail, and answered in the same language.

'You have British and French prisoners aboard,' said Strang sharply. 'You will be good enough to put them all into a boat and send them across.'

'And if I refuse?' retorted the other.

'I shall shell you until you think better of it,' was the calm reply.

The other bit his lips. 'Very well,' he said sullenly. 'I have no choice.'

'Look out for treachery, sir,' said Ken in a low voice. 'That man means mischief, I believe.'

'He is an ugly looking beggar. But what can he do?'

The words were hardly out of his mouth before the black-browed officer flung up his arm, with a pistol gripped in his fist, and fired straight at Commander Strang's head.

Quick as he was, Ken was quicker. As the man's arm came up, so did Ken's, and seizing Strang by the wrist, he jerked him back.

Before the man could fire a second time, one of the bluejackets had raised his rifle and shot him through the body.

'Thank you, Carrington,' said the commander, glancing at the gray splash of lead on the deck, just where he had been standing the previous moment, 'You were right, and I was wrong.

'Speak to them in their own language,' he continued coolly. 'Tell them I'll blow them out of the water if they try any more tricks of that sort.'

Ken's announcement was followed by dead silence aboard the steamer. Then a second officer appeared at the rail. He had both hands up.

'We surrender,' he said.

''Bout time, too,' growled the big bluejacket.

Strang repeated his former orders, and this time they were obeyed without hesitation. Ken's heart beat thickly as he watched the prisoners hurrying into the boat which had been lowered from her davits to a level with the deck.

'Do you see your father yet?' Strang asked.

'Not yet, sir,' Ken answered, with his eyes fixed on the fast-filling boat.

'Sixteen—seventeen—eighteen,' he counted mechanically. Suddenly a slight cry escaped his lips, and he started forward.

'Father!' he shouted loudly.

An upright man with keen blue eyes, a man of about fifty, but whose hair and moustache were almost white, was in the act of getting to the boat. At Ken's cry, he started violently, stopped short and stared incredulously in the direction of the sound.

'Father!' shouted Ken again.

'You, Ken?' The tone was one of utter amazement.

'It's me all right, dad,' Ken answered in a voice which shook a little in spite of himself.

Before their eyes the other seemed to shake off ten years of age. He sprang into the boat as lightly as a boy. Three more followed, making twenty-two in all. Then the blocks creaked, and the boat was rapidly lowered to the water.

Oars began to ply vigorously, and she shot across the intervening space, and a minute later was alongside the submarine.

'You must wait there, please, gentlemen,' said Strang courteously. 'I have to deal with the troops at once. Keep well astern.'

Ken was aching to greet his father, but there was plenty for him to do for the moment. He had to translate the commander's orders, which were that all those aboard the steamer should get away at once in the boats. He gave them twenty minutes for the operation.

They were the longest twenty minutes Ken every knew, but they were over at last. The crowded boats pulled slowly away in a northerly direction, the big steamer floated empty and helpless.

'Do we board her, sir?' asked young Hotham of Strang.

'Yes, I'll save my torpedoes while I can. Put a good charge of gun-cotton in her hold. Quick as you can, Hotham. We may have a destroyer down on us any minute. You may be sure they had plenty of time to use their wireless.'

He turned to the boatful of released prisoners. They were of every sort, young and old—French, English, with even one or two Russians and Belgians.

'Gentlemen,' he said briefly, 'I can't ask you all aboard. The reason is obvious. In a submarine there is only room for a certain number, and I am already three beyond my proper complement. The question is, what I am to do with you for your safety, and I should be obliged if two of you would come aboard to discuss matters with me. One whom I will specially ask is Captain Carrington.'

Ken's breath came quickly as he watched his father step across out of the boat on to the steel deck of G2, but like the trained soldier that he was, he did not move. Strang, however, had not forgotten him.

'You shall have your father to yourself as soon as we have settled things,' he said, as he passed him.

Mr Ramsay, who had been manager of a British bank at Constantinople, was the other delegate from the boat. He and Ken's father both shook hands with Strang.

'We are most deeply indebted to you, Commander Strang,' said Captain Carrington.' We never hoped for such luck as to find a British vessel already in the Marmora.

'Ours is unfortunately the only sort that can get through at present, sir,' said Strang with a smile.' And after all, I don't know that you have much cause for gratitude. I can't ferry you home through the Straits, for in the first place I can't carry you, and in the second I have my job to do up here. There is only one thing I can think of.' Here he lowered his voice, so that Ken could hear no more. But presently he saw the others nod, evidently agreeing to the proposal, whatever it was.



Mr Ramsay went back to the boat, and she was at once taken in tow. The screws began to revolve again, and G2 swung round in a half circle, and headed due east, running on the surface.

Next minute Ken's hand gripped that of his father.

For a moment neither of them could speak. They had not seen one another for two long years, and both had so much to say that they did not know where to begin.

Strang, with his usual kindly tact, touched Ken on the shoulder.

'Take your father for'ard of the conning tower. You can talk there without interruption. We shall be on the surface for the present.'

Ken thanked him gratefully, and they both went forward, and there, leaning against the gray steel of the little turret, with the small waves lapping over the turtle-back forward, Ken told his father how their strange meeting had come about.

Then Captain Carrington gave his son a brief sketch of his two years' imprisonment. It had not been as bad as it might, for the kindly Othman Pacha had used what interest he possessed to get his friend shut up in a fortress instead of the usual horrible Turkish jail. Still it had been bad enough, and the worst of it, the deep anxiety he had felt for Ken.

'Well, that's all over, dad, thank goodness,' said Ken. 'Everything will be all right now. It's only a matter of time before we force the Dardanelles, and—'

'A matter of time,' broke in the other with the quizzical smile that Ken remembered so well. 'Just so, my boy, but I'm afraid you are forgetting something. What are we to do meanwhile? Here we are, in the heart of Turkish territory, and no way out. It's rather early to say that our troubles are all over, isn't it?'

Ken's face fell. In his delight at meeting his father again, he had quite forgotten the difficulties still before them.

'But—but I thought that Lieutenant Strang had a plan,' he stammered. 'He's towing the boat somewhere.'

His father nodded.

'Yes, I suppose it need be no secret from you. He is taking us, or trying to take us, to a certain cave on the south shore of the sea. It is one of the hidden petrol bases which are supplied by friendly Armenians. But, even if we get there safely, there is always the risk of discovery by the enemy, as well as difficulties of provisioning so many of us. And we may not even get there. Supposing that an enemy ship appears in chase, and the submarine has to submerge, what then?'

Ken gazed at his father blankly. Before he could speak again a sharp hail came from the look-out in the conning tower.

'Ship in sight, sir!'



CHAPTER XVII

THE BOARDING PARTY

Ken and his father were both on their feet in an instant. While they had been talking it had turned misty. It was only a haze, but it blurred the horizon so that at first they could not see the vessel.

But presently Ken pointed.

'There she is. Do you see, dad?'

Captain Carrington nodded.

'I see her, Ken, but my eyes are not what they were. I can't tell what she is.'

At this moment Lieutenant Strang stepped up to them.

'It's just as I was afraid, sir,' he said quietly. 'There appears to be something after us. It's so thick I can hardly make out what she is yet, but in any case it's precious awkward.'

'Very awkward indeed,' admitted Captain Carrington. 'Alone, you would be all right, for you could submerge of course, but if so you leave us prisoners to be picked up again. Still, of course, there is no choice. You must not risk your ship.'

Strang bit his lip. He knew that Captain Carrington was right. But it went bitterly against the grain to abandon the people whom he had rescued with so much trouble. As for Ken, the idea of losing his father again just after he had found him sent his spirits down to zero.

After a moment's thought, Strang spoke again. 'I might leave the boat, sir, and tackle this fellow, whoever he is. It's on the cards I might sink him and come back again and pick you up.'

'That might be worth trying,' answered Captain Carrington. And he spoke as calmly as if the upshot was of absolutely no consequence to him whatever.

Ken, who had been staring hard at the approaching craft, turned quickly to the commander.

'Couldn't you capture her, sir?' he said eagerly.

Strang stared as if he thought that Ken had suddenly taken leave of his senses.

'Capture her?' he repeated.

'Yes, sir. Then you could put all the prisoners aboard her, and they could find their own way to the hiding place. And Horan and myself, too, perhaps.'

Strang gave a low whistle.

''Pon my soul, it's an idea. Especially as, being an enemy ship, she wouldn't be so likely to be searched.'

'It would be very nice for us if it could be managed,' said Captain Carrington with a smile. 'But I suppose it is quite out of the question, Mr Strang?'

'It all depends on what she is, sir,' replied Strang, as he put up his binoculars and focused them on the indistinct patch on the misty horizon.

Presently he put them down.

'She's nothing but a launch,' he said quickly. 'Armed, of course, but probably only a 6-pounder. I'm hanged if I don't try it.'

'Very good,' said Captain Carrington, speaking as calmly as ever. 'I will go back into the boat, and tell my friends. By the bye, how would it do to use us as bait for the trap? If you were merely to submerge, and lie close by with only your periscopes showing, it seems to me that you might manage to take them unawares.'

'I've got a better plan than that, sir,' broke in Ken quickly. 'Put Horan and myself in the boat. Give us some pistols. We'll sham shipwrecked. Most of us can hide in the bottom of the boat. The launch won't have much of a crew. With a rush we might overpower them.'

The boldness of Ken's suggestion made both men gasp. Strang was the first to speak.

'It's a big risk, but it might work. Are you willing, Captain Carrington?'

A grim smile parted the lips of Ken's father.

'Willing! It would make me young again.'

Strang's decision was taken like a flash.

'It goes, then. And I'll lend you a couple of my men as well. Williams and Johnston. Hefty chaps in a scrimmage, and both equal to engines of any kind. But we must be smart. This must be done before the Turks get any notion of what is up.'

He dashed back to the conning tower, and orders flew like hail. The men were equally quick to obey. Williams and Johnston came tumbling up, and Roy hard at their heels.

'What's up?' demanded Roy eagerly of Ken, and when Ken had quickly explained, the big New Zealander's face fairly glowed with delight.

'Fine, oh fine!' he cried. 'I began to think we were never going to get another chance. 'It's the greatest scheme you ever thought of, Ken.'

Two more bluejackets rushed up, with armfuls of cutlasses.

'Commander says these are the jokers for a scrimmage,' one told Ken, as they hurriedly passed them across to the people in the boat.

'He's right,' said Roy, 'but we shall want a pistol or two as well.'

'Plenty here, Horan,' said Williams, the torpedo coxswain, holding up a couple of the big regulation Navy revolvers. 'It's all right. We've got all we want. Come along in, you two soldiers.'

Ken and Roy tumbled aboard the boat, other three of the ex-prisoners, who were too old or infirm to be any use as fighters, were hastily transferred to the submarine.

Inside of three minutes all was ready, the warp was cast off, and the steel hatch in the conning tower dropped with a clang. In a trice G2 began to sink, and within an incredibly short space of time she had dipped out of sight beneath the sea, and the boat lay alone on the surface, rocking slightly to the send of the small gray waves.

For the first time Ken had leisure to glance round at his companions. Including Roy, himself, Williams, and Johnston, the full number was twenty-three, and of them all there was not one who did not look keen and eager for the fray. All had suffered at the hands of the enemy, some had lost all they had in the world. Every man was anxious to get a little of his own back. By the way they gripped the cutlasses that had been served out, by their grim faces, and eager eyes, Ken felt certain that there would be no hesitation when the critical moment arrived.

'What is the craft?' asked Roy, who was crowding close beside him.

'Nothing but a launch,' Ken answered.

'She looks pretty big for a launch,' said Roy, staring at the vessel which was now near enough to see the shape of her.

'Oh, I dare say she's a fifty-footer. And no doubt she carries a good few men. And a gun, too. It's not going to be any picnic, old chap. Our only chance is a surprise.'

'And there won't be much surprise about it, if we let them see how many men we have aboard,' cut in Captain Carrington briskly. The years had dropped away from him, and he was again the naval officer.

'Get down, Ken, and you too, Horan. Williams and Johnston, hide yourselves under that tarpaulin forward.'

Very shortly all the younger men of the party were stowed away, some under the thwarts, others under a couple of tarpaulins which Strang had put in for the purpose. All weapons were carefully hidden, and the dozen older men, who were all that were left in sight, were directed to loll about, as though suffering from long exposure or fatigue.

The haze was thickening, so there was little danger of the people aboard the launch noticing the manoeuvre.

The launch had, however, sighted the boat. There was no doubt about that, for she had altered her course, and was coming straight towards them.

'Beastly fuggy under here!' growled Roy in Ken's ear.

'Take it easy, old chap. We shan't have long to wait.'

Ken's father heard, and bent down.

'She's within a mile. Mind you don't move till I give the word.'

'All right, dad,' came the muffled response from under the tarpaulin. 'How big is she?'

'A good size. She looks as if she carried a score of men. And there's a 6-pounder in her bows.'

Soon she was so near that Ken clearly heard the beat of her engine. His breath came quick and short. The critical moment was very near.

The revolutions slackened, and a man hailed from the launch, speaking, to Ken's dismay, in harsh German.

'Who are you? What are you doing there?' the speaker demanded suspiciously.

'We are British and French from Constantinople,' answered Captain Carrington, using the same language. 'We were aboard the Turkish transport "Bergaz" which was sunk earlier in the day by a British submarine.'

'Blitzen!' exclaimed the German angrily. 'Then the message was true after all. Those verdomde British have managed to pass the mine-fields.

'And where is the submarine?' he demanded savagely.

'She was forced to abandon us. One of your warships hove in sight.'

The German paused a moment. His eyes scanned the surface in every direction. But there was no sign of G 2's periscopes. Either she had gone under altogether, or withdrawn to such a distance that her periscopes were invisible in the mist.

'Train the gun on them,' growled the German officer. Then, raising his voice, 'If this is a trap, every one of you will pay for it with your lives.'

'I have told you the literal truth,' said Captain Carrington coldly. 'You can take us or leave us as you wish.'

Again the German hesitated.

'The safest way will be to haul off and sink them,' he said to a Turk who stood beside him. He spoke in Turkish, but Ken, of course, understood, and knowing the brutality of the average German officer, felt anything but happy.

Apparently the Turkish officer had different views, for after a short conversation the German gave an order, and the launch moved forward again.

Ken, though he could not see what was happening, heard the beat of her screw, and every nerve in his body tingled. As for Captain Carrington and the rest, they sat in their places, not moving an inch, and doing their best to convey the idea that they were quite worn out, and cared not at all whether they were retaken or not.

Yet, under his coat, or in his pocket, each man gripped his revolver, while his cutlass lay handy at his feet.

The launch came on slowly, and her crew fortunately were hardly noticing the boat. Their eyes were busy, searching the misty surface for the periscope of their deadly enemy.

Only the German seemed to have any suspicion concerning those in the boat. When the launch was within about half a dozen yards, he spoke again.

'You there, Englishman, stand up!' he ordered sharply. 'You, I mean, the one who speaks German.'

Captain Carrington rose leisurely to his feet.

'You will be the first to pay for treachery,' said the German fiercely. 'Put your hands up.'

Ken quivered. To him it sounded as though his father's death warrant had been sounded. At the first sign of attack the German would shoot him. Yet he had his orders, and he dared not move.

It seemed an age before he felt a slight jar. It was the launch touching the boat.

'What's under that tarpaulin?' came the sharp question from the German.

Crack! Crack! Two shots rang out simultaneously. There was a scream and the sound of a heavy splash.

Ken waited no longer. Like a flash he flung aside the tarpaulin, and leaped to his feet. The German was gone, he was struggling in the water and one of their own men was lying writhing in the bottom of the boat.

'Up and at 'em!' came a hurricane yell from Williams, and with one bound the big coxswain had leaped aboard the launch, and was laying about him with his cutlass.

Ken waited just long enough to make sure that his father was not hurt, then followed.

He heard the Turkish officer shout an order for full steam ahead. The launch darted forward, but it was too late. Johnston and another man detailed for the purpose had already flung grappling irons across. The launch drew the boat with her, close alongside.

'Out, ye black-faced blighter!' roared Williams, as he cut down a great burly Turk who was swinging at him with a rifle butt.

Inside ten seconds every mother's son in the boat had reached the deck of the launch, and a regular hand-to-hand battle raged.

The launch was heavily manned, and after their first surprise the Turks pulled themselves together and fought desperately. Though the launch was a big one, yet there was not much room on her decks for nearly fifty fighting men, and Ken found himself literally wedged in the centre of a tight-packed mob, which swayed from side to side as the fighters struggled frantically for elbow room.

In a way this told in favour of the Britishers. The short, heavy Navy cutlasses were much better adapted for a melee of this sort than the rifles and bayonets with which the Turks were armed.

Ken found himself up against a tall, brown-faced fellow who looked like an Arab and was armed with a long sword. He made a fearful slash at Ken, and though Ken saved his head by a guard with his cutlass, he was beaten to his knees.

Up went the Arab's sword again, Ken saw the glitter in his savage eyes, and thought it was all over when, in the very nick of time, a revolver spat and turned the fierce face into a blood-stained horror.

Struggling up, he saw Roy leap past and fire a second time at a man who was swinging at him with a rifle butt. The latter, hit in the shoulder, staggered, caught his heels in the rail, and went backwards into the sea.

On every side revolvers were cracking, there was a confused medley of blows, yells, and oaths. And all the time the launch, with no one at the tiller, and the boat fast alongside, charged wildly across the sea.

Man for man, the Turks were better fighters than the boarders, most of whom were civilians and unaccustomed to the use of weapons. But the latter were fighting for their lives and were splendidly led by Captain Carrington, Ken, Roy, and the two big sailor men. It was really the latter five who carried the day. They were everywhere at once, slashing and shooting like demons, and by degrees the Turks fell back before them.

Half a dozen or more were driven over the side into the sea, and left perforce to drown.

At last the Turks broke and gave way. Some dropped their weapons and flung up their hands in token of surrender.

'They've surrendered!' cried Captain Carrington. 'Give them quarter.'

At that moment Ken saw a Turkish officer, his face covered with blood, spring out of the crowd aft and rush forward.

'Look out there!' he shouted, and wrenching himself loose from the press, raced after the man.

The officer, however, had a long start, and before Ken could catch him, had reached the gun and was swinging it round.

'Look out!' yelled Ken again, as he realised what the man was after. He was desperate, and meant to turn the gun full upon the packed crowd, destroying friend and foe alike.

He had got the gun round, his finger was almost on the button when Ken reached him, and going at him head down, like a Rugby tackier, flung both arms around his waist.



With a fierce exclamation, the man hit out with his fist, but the blow fell harmlessly on Ken's back. Then, twining both hands in Ken's collar, he made a frantic effort to break his grip and fling him aside.

Ken held on like grim death. If he failed, it meant death for all his friends. The other was a powerful, wiry man in the prime of life, while Ken had not yet come to his full strength. For some seconds they struggled fiercely, the Turk exerting every effort to reach the gun, Ken straining frantically to hold him off.

Ken's heel caught in a ring bolt. He felt himself falling, but managed to drag the other down with him. But his own head struck the deck with such force as to half stun him, and he felt his grip relaxing.

'Dog, you shall die with the rest!' hissed the other, as at last he tore himself free, and sprang to the gun.

But Ken was not done yet. He had fallen almost under the gun, and swiftly lifting one foot he kicked out desperately at the gray barrel above him.

There was a crash which nearly deafened him, and for a moment he believed that the madman had succeeded in his awful purpose. Then a tall figure sprang across him, and with a shout Roy drove his fist into the Turk's face.

Up went the man's arms, he staggered back and fell into the sea.

'Well done, Ken!' cried Roy. 'That's finished it.'

Ken scrambled to his feet and stared round in amazement.

'W—Where did the shell go?' he stammered.

'Somewhere in the direction of Constantinople,' was the reply. 'Your kick did it, Ken.'

'It's all right,' he added jubilantly.' The rest of the chaps have given in. The launch is ours.'



CHAPTER XVIII

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

'It seemed shabby to leave you to do all the fighting, but if I had come into it I'm afraid you'd have been left without a ship.'

The speaker was Lieutenant Strang, who stood on the deck of G2, which had risen again and was lying alongside the launch.

'It was your fellows who won the battle for us,' answered Captain Carrington cheerfully. 'I wish to congratulate you on the possession of two such men as Williams and Johnston.' Williams stepped forward and touched his cap.

'If you please, sir, the captain here and his son and Horan, they did as much as any. But all on 'em fought like good 'uns.'

'What are your losses, sir?' asked the lieutenant of Captain Garrington.

'Two killed, three rather badly wounded.'

'You got off lightly. There don't seem to be many Turks left.'

'Only nine alive, and of those four are wounded.'

'Are the launch's engines all right?'

'Nothing wrong with them,' answered the captain, 'so Williams tells me.'

'Well, it's getting late and very thick. You had better follow me, and I will escort you to the place we spoke of. The Turks who are sound can take the boat and be towed until we are off one of the islands, when we can cast them off and they can land.'

Ken stepped up to his father, and said something in a low voice. A slightly startled expression appeared on the captain's face.

'You think it possible, Ken?' he said sharply.

'I do. I believe we could get through.'

'Then I will suggest it to Lieutenant Strang.

'Lieutenant Strang,' he called. 'Before we start I have a suggestion to make. I will come across if you will permit me.'

'Certainly, sir.'

The launch lay so close to the submarine that it was easy for the Captain to spring across. Strang met him, and for some moments the two talked in whispers.

At first the commander of the submarine seemed unwilling to agree to the captain's proposal, but presently Ken, who was watching breathlessly, saw him nod his head.

Then the captain smiled, and turning leaped lightly back on to the launch.

'It's all right, Ken,' he said. 'We are going to try it.'

'Hurrah!' cried Ken in high delight.

'Try what?' demanded Roy. 'Hang it all! Don't keep us in the dark. What's all the mystery about?' Ken glanced at his father.

'All right,' said the latter. 'Every one must know and agree before we start.'

'Gentlemen,' he said, addressing the anxious crowd who surrounded him, 'my son has suggested that we might do something better than go and lie up for an indefinite time in the hiding-place which would be our only possible refuge on these shores, and where we should be in constant danger from the enemy. His idea is that we might make a dash back down the Straits.'

'Mais, it would be ze madness!' exclaimed an elderly Frenchman, with a gray imperial and a blood-stained bandage around his head. 'Zey would sink us.'

'So they would under ordinary circumstances,' agreed the captain. 'But the night and—more than that—the fog are in our favour. Besides this launch is Turkish, and we have several people aboard who can speak the language.'

'But ze mines!' objected the Frenchman.

'There again we are fairly safe. The launch is of such shallow draught that she will easily pass over the mine-fields. Floating mines we must of course risk, but there are not likely to be many about, for the Turks only send them down when an attack is expected. One other point is in our favour. This launch is fast. With any luck, we shall be through the Straits and in safety long before daylight.'

The Frenchman nodded.

'Vair well, Monsieur le Capitaine. For me, I am satisfied.'

'I think we all are,' said an elderly Englishman named Symons.

The captain looked round, but no one offered any objection.

'Then it is decided,' he said quietly, and proceeded to issue his orders as briskly as he had done, years before, on his own quarter-deck.

The Turks were transferred to the empty boat, and taken in tow by the submarine. Johnston went back to G2, but Williams remained as engineer in charge of the launch. The dead Turks were put overboard, and the traces of the fight quickly removed.

Then Strang bade them farewell and good luck, the engines began to move, the screw churned the water, and the prize, heading westwards, sped rapidly towards the mouth of the Straits.

Williams, who was the sort of man who could tackle anything in the way of machinery, from a sewing machine to a Dreadnought's turbines, soon got the hang of the launch's engines.

'They're a bit of all right,' he said to Ken and Roy, who had volunteered as stokers and oilers. 'Blowed if I thought them Turks had anything as good. But I reckon this here craft come from Germany.'

'She certainly can leg it,' observed Ken, as he noticed how the whole fabric of the little craft quivered under the drive of the rapidly revolving screw.

'Ay, and I reckon we'll need all she's got afore we're through,' replied Williams dryly, as he squirted oil into a bearing.

'We ought to be all right if the fog holds,' said Ken.

'Ay, if it does. I'll allow it's thick enough up here, but there ain't no saying what it'll be down in them straits. Fogs is uncertain things at best and you never can tell when you'll run out o' one into clear weather.'

Williams's warning made Ken feel distinctly uneasy, and every few minutes he kept looking out to see what the weather was doing. But so far from clearing, the mist seemed to thicken, until it was as gray and wet as the Channel on a late autumn day. Night, too, was closing down, and soon it was so dark that one end of the vessel could not be seen from the other.

The distance to the mouth of the Straits was about thirty miles, and the Straits themselves have a length of thirty-five. The launch was good for fifteen knots, and though it would not be possible to go at full speed through the Narrows, they hoped, barring accidents, to do the journey in about five hours.

Having done two hours' work, Ken and Roy were relieved, and after a much needed wash, went into the cabin for a mouthful of food. Then Ken went forward, to find his father, wearing a rough black oilskin, combining the duties of look-out and skipper. At the wheel was a young Englishman named Morgan, an amateur yachtsman who knew the Straits like the palm of his hand.

'Where are we now, dad?' asked Ken.

'Opposite Bulair.'

'What—in the Straits?'

'At their mouth, Ken.'

'We haven't wasted much time, then.'

'Indeed we haven't. But I am afraid we shall have to slow a bit now. The fog is thicker than ever, there are no lights, and we don't want to come to an ignominious end by piling ourselves up on the cliffs.

'Still the fog's our best friend,' he continued, 'and we have plenty of time before us. If we average no more than half-speed we should be clear before daylight.'

For another twenty minutes they carried on at full speed through the choking smother, then Captain Carrington rang to reduce speed.

'We're off Gallipoli now,' he said. 'That's where I should have been by this time, Ken, if G 2 had not popped up just at the proper moment.'

'It isn't exactly a salubrious spot,' Ken answered with a smile. 'The "Lizzie" has been chucking her 15-inchers into the town whenever she hadn't anything else to do.'

For the next two hours the launch nosed her way cautiously south-westwards, through the wet smother. Most of the time she kept fairly close under the Asiatic shore. There were fewer forts that side, and less danger therefore of attracting attention.

During the whole of that time she never sighted so much as a rowing boat. The Straits were as empty as a country lane on a winter night.

About eleven Ken, who had done another spell of stoking, went forward again to where his father kept his ceaseless watch.

'Getting near the Narrows, aren't we?' he asked in a low voice.

'We are, Ken. If my reckoning is right Nagara Point is almost on our port bow.'

'There's a light of some sort just ahead, sir,' said Morgan from the wheel.

'I see it too,' said Ken quickly. 'Can it be from the fort?'

Quickly the captain rang to slow still more. With barely steerage way the launch moved noiselessly forward. There followed some moments of breathless silence, while the three stared at the dull mysterious glow which was now almost exactly ahead.

'It's a craft of some sort,' said Ken in a sharp whisper. 'The light's moving.'

'You're right. Starboard a trifle, Morgan.'

Again a pause. Then Ken spoke again.

'It's a tug, father. She's towing a string of barges. She's going across to Maidos.'

'Then I know what they're doing,' said Morgan.' They're taking stores across from the Asiatic side. I heard they had started that game since our submarines began to worry them in the Marmora.'

'I thought as much,' Captain Carrington answered quietly. 'Then it is up to us to stop it.'

Ken glanced quickly at his father, but there was not light to see his face. It was Morgan who voiced his thought.

'We shall bring the fire of all the batteries down on us,' he said.

'Of course,' Captain Carrington's voice was calm as ever. 'Starboard another point, Morgan. Ken, call Dimmock. He's an ex-gunnery lieutenant, and can handle the 6-pounder.'

'I'm here already, sir,' came a voice out of the gloom. I saw the light, and guessed what was up.'

'I can help, father,' said Ken. 'Ah, and here's Roy.'

All three sprang forward to the gun. It had already been loaded and a dozen spare shells were ready alongside.

'This is luck,' said Roy in a gleeful whisper, as he ranged himself alongside the gun. He, like the rest, was perfectly well aware that the first shot they fired would bring down on them the concentrated fire of all the batteries on both shores, and that their chances of escape were hardly worth considering. But this did not weigh for a moment, if they were able to strike a blow for the Empire.

The revolutions were increasing, the launch moved more rapidly down upon her quarry.

'Three barges!' exclaimed Roy. 'Big 'uns, too! I say, there must be tons of stuff aboard. Jove, won't the Turks be sick?'

'We must get the tug first,' said Dimmock, who, though a man of forty, was as keen as a boy. 'If we can slap it into her first, we can deal with the barges at our leisure.'

As he spoke he was squinting along the barrel, his right hand busy with the sighting screw.

'Hang this fog!' he muttered. 'I can hardly see what I'm shooting at.'

The launch was now within little more than a hundred yards of the tug which was puffing noisily along, her string of barges tailing heavily down the current, and her crew utterly unaware of the hidden danger gliding down upon them through the fog.

'I'm beastly rusty,' continued Dimmock. 'Still, I hardly think I can miss her at this range.'

As he spoke his finger pressed the electric button, and the gun barked with that ear-splitting crack peculiar to the 6-pounder.

The tug staggered and rang like an iron drum.

'Not much miss about that!' cried Roy triumphantly. 'You must have got her slap in the boilers.'

'No, it was too high,' said Dimmock in a discontented tone.' This gun jumps a bit. Sharp there, with that other shell.'

Roy slipped it in as though it were a toy, the breech-block snicked to, and five seconds later a second report roused the echoes.

'That's better,' said Dimmock, as a flash of flame rose from the midships section of the tug. 'Ah, there goes her funnel! She's a goner.'

He was right. The tug swung round to the current, and, with engines stopped, drifted idly down the Straits.

'What's the matter? They haven't begun to fire yet,' said Roy quickly, as he thrust a third shell into the open breech.



'So much the better for us,' Ken answered. 'Mr Dimmock, this one ought to do for the nearest barge.'

Hastily Dimmock sighted again at the blunt, low-lying object which loomed dimly ahead in the wet darkness.

Once more the smart little gun spoke, but the crack of the report had hardly sounded before it was drowned by the most appalling crash. Up from the stricken barge shot a sheet of crimson flame, a blaze of fire which mounted a hundred feet into the murky air, and in spite of fog and mist flung its glare upon the iron cliffs on either side the narrow straits.

The launch shuddered as though she had struck a reef, and the blast from the explosion flung every soul who was standing up flat upon her decks.

Hard upon the roar came a wave, a wave which rose high over the bows of the long, slim craft, and swept across her in a torrent of cold, salt water.

It washed Ken back against the rail, which he clutched at desperately, and so saved himself from going overboard.

Dazed and confused, he struggled to his feet.

'Roy!' he cried thickly, 'Roy!'

'All right. We're all right,' came a hoarse reply, and Roy's tall figure rose from close under the opposite rail, and grasping Dimmock, lugged him to his feet.

'Gad, that's done the trick!' he panted. 'The other barges are gone. So's the tug. We've bust the whole caboodle.'

From aft came Captain Carrington's voice, shouting for 'Full speed ahead!'

Time, too, for the gunners in the forts, recovering from their paralysed amazement, were already getting busy and the roar of great guns was followed by the rocket-like hiss of shells.

Like a frightened hare the launch gathered speed and darted away downstream. Shells, each big enough to smash her to kindling, fell on every side, but the gunners on both sides were firing too high, and by a series of miracles the launch was not touched.

Searchlights sprang out, their white fingers feeling through the murk. But no searchlight ever made will penetrate a thousand yards of fog, and the dull glares only served to warn the steersman of the launch of dangers to be avoided.